The unsolved riddle of social justice / by Stephen Leacock.

  • Leacock, Stephen, 1869-1944.
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The unsolved riddle of social justice / by Stephen Leacock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and the cruel wastage of disease were viewed with complacence. It was ‘‘ nature’s ” own process at work. The unfit,” so called, were being winnowed out that only the best might survive. The biologi- cal doctrine of evolution was misinterpreted and misapplied to social policy. But in the organic world there is no such thing as the “ fit ” or the unfit,” in any higher or moral sense. The most hideous forms of life may sur- vive ” and thrust aside the most beautiful. It is only by a confusion of thought that the processes of organic nature which render every foot of fertile ground the scene of unending conflict can be used to explain away the death of children of the slums. The whole theory of survival is only a statement of what is, not of what ought to be. The moment that we introduce the operation of human volition and activity, that, too, becomes one of the factors of ‘‘ survival.” The dog, the cat, and the cow live by man’s will, where the wolf and the hyena have perished. But it is time that the Malthusian doctrine—the fear of over-population as a hindrance to social reform—was dismissed from consideration. It is at best but a worn-out scarecrow shaking its vain rags in the wind. Population, it is true, increases in a